First day

Well. I'm assuming he made it to school. :) 

Before he left, I made him pose with his brothers for tradition's sake:

(Do you get the impression that the younger two may have been more excited for Noah than Noah? lol)

I also managed a solo picture, sans smile:

And this, when he thought I wasn't ready yet:

And, btw, it happens to be Nathan's birthday today also. :) (It's getting a bit overshadowed by starting school and all the house projects (painting was delayed but should start later today, fwiw) but we'll go out for dinner later tonight after Noah gets home and before we head to demo team practice.)

In any case, Nathan felt he deserved a hug for his birthday:

But, unsurprisingly, Noah wasn't as cooperative as Micah:

So. Happy first day of school (ever) to Noah and happy birthday to Nathan! :) 

Breathe.

My boy went off to high school today. High school!!!

Yup. This year's different for us...because I'll only be homeschooling two of my three. Noah's going to high school at a local charter school that allows him to also take college classes in conjunction with nearby community colleges. His classes start tomorrow and will include both high school and college level classes. My understanding is that after this fall semester, having completed the prerequisites, Noah will be eligible to take college level classes from here out. All of his classes, though, will be located on the school's campus until Noah's old enough to take classes off campus at the actual community colleges. Awesome!

This is a picture I stealthily took as he headed off this morning. Today is orientation, but they'll be taking attendance, so it counts. I'll take official first day of school pictures tomorrow. ;)

Yes, the school is close enough for him to walk. (It's one of the things that attracted us to it in the first place, lol. Also, it's a good thing we live so close, as parking is extremely limited and the parking lot is quite congested for drop off and pick up.) Yes, he insisted on going alone. Yes, I know I shouldn't be emotional about it, lol, but I'll ask you to remember that I've never seen a boy off on a school bus or watched them walk to school. I'm starting with high school and trying to respect his independence (though part of me feels like it's the first day of kindergarten and wants desperately to hover, lol). :)

Whew. 

So. I don't normally do it, but I'm picking a word to help me focus during this school year. (I'm still enjoying my word of 2014...this is just extra.) I've been having a hard time narrowing it down to just one word, though. (Big surprise, right?) I wanted a word to express...

• my gratitude for this opportunity (for Noah to take this new path and for the rest of us to renew our homeschooling enthusiasm...feeling so thankful that this seems to be a good fit for Noah and that I'll have the time to really focus on the younger two)...
• my desire to celebrate the journey and the little steps, to welcome what comes...
• my recognition that there will be challenges and changes and a need to adapt...
• my need to simplify the "stuff" that can overwhelm me...to just go with the flow and try to remember the overall purpose and trust in my optimism...
• my hope in my abilities to guide us...with intention...through the year...

What I came up with, then, is: BREATHE. I want to remember to take my time...to listen...to appreciate.

So. Deep breath. Here we go.  :)

Update on brain explosion

So. It's Monday night. Here's where things stand...

******************

Our official first day ever of full time public school is in less than a week. Less than a week! That, in itself, is manageable. What might do me in, though, is the list of additional things happening between now and then...for instance:

• Our roof is being replaced as I type. (It's been rescheduled three times...first due to rain, then unexpected delay on another job, then truck problems. But. It's happening now. Fingers crossed that our regularly scheduled potential afternoon storms hold off for today. Please.) - DONE! Whew. It took a day and a half (longer than we'd been told) but is done and looks dandy.
• A second round of pest control spraying (for the ants) will be happening sometime today also...because I still saw ants. Bleh. - DONE. Fingers crossed.
• The older two boys have eye appointments Friday, as I was trying to squeeze those in before Noah's schedule becomes much more difficult to work around. (Micah and I have appointments also, but those are a full week away, not a couple days, lol.) - DONE. Ordered more contacts for Noah and a new pair of glasses for Asher. (Asher didn't want to pick new frames but we ended up doing so since he didn't want to go without glasses for a week while new lenses were added. They'll be ready in a week or so.) Both boys' prescriptions went up slightly but otherwise look good. Incidentally, they also had time to see Micah. Micah, much to his chagrin, does NOT need glasses as of now. ;)
• I need to wrap up our summer reading program as the boys have until Friday to finish. They'll all meet their minimums and it's gone really very well. I'll need to settle up with boys for the "prizes" they each earned. (Maybe they'll cut me some slack and give me an extra week or so...) - DONE. More on this when I do posts about homeschool stuff.
• There's an additional demo team practice Saturday morning to get ready for New West Fest the following weekend. (This isn't a huge deal but Micah's going to join in for this one routine and is being rather indecisive about how he feels about it, so I keep hearing about it, lol.) - DONE. Micah's pretty happy about the whole thing and is now talking about possibly joining the demo team on a more full time basis.
• The deck is being removed Sunday. - Not done. This didn't happen as planned but should still get done before the house painting (same crew).
• Nathan will then need to build some temporary steps until we figure out the back patio situation. (Eventually we'll probably also replace the sliding door but didn't get on top of that soon enough to get it scheduled before the house painting.)
• Nathan needs to go around and remove things from the outside of the house to prep for house painting. (The previous owner added all sorts of crazy cables to the outside of the house rather than taking the time to hide them. They've just been painted to blend in, but we're taking the opportunity to actually remove them this time.) - DONE. And Nathan's still not a fan of the previous owner, lol. 
• Prepping for house painting will also involve removing the fence portions that abut the house. We'll schedule full replacement of the fence after that. (We managed to get the two trees that were growing into the fence lines removed last week.) - DONE. Still need to schedule the fence replacement.
• I need to give all my guys haircuts prior to student ID pictures being taken (on Tuesday for Noah and on the 18th for the younger two). - DONE. Micah opted to have me shave off his mohawk again. ;)
• Exterior house painting starts Monday. - Not done...delayed until tomorrow. :)
• Because they're also going to paint the front door, we need to get new front door hardware and a new doorbell ahead of time to make sure that all fits and is sanded and such. - DONE. We'll put it on once the painting is finished.
• (And we have new exterior lights and house numbers to add, but that can wait if need be. Decided we might as well update the whole look while we're repainting and redoing the roof and gutters and screens and such.) - DONE. Have these on hand now...just waiting for painting to be completed.
• We have a half day parent orientation for CEC on Monday. - DONE. Still very happy with this program.
• Noah has a half day new student orientation for CEC on Tuesday.
• The new window well covers we ordered should be installed early next week-ish.
• We're hoping to find a new-to-us second vehicle within the next week...this involves coordinating schedules to both go test drive things. - DONE. We *thought* we'd figured it out Saturday night, ended up going on a couple more test drives Sunday afternoon, made an offer on the second one, had it inspected this morning, and now have a second vehicle in the driveway. :) It's a 2005 Subaru Legacy...nothing fancy but a step up from what Nathan was driving, fewer miles, good condition, and only a wee bit more than the insurance paid us for Nathan's old car. It's in the driveway, though, until we can clean out the garage and figure out how to rearrange things to fit a second car that's not as stubby as the Scion was, lol.

Whew. Making progress... ;)

Lessons from the test drives...

We've gone on about nine test drives now and looked at dozens of cars, both from private sellers and on car lots. We've narrowed down our search and are *this* close to figuring it out. Along the way, here are some lessons we've learned:

• Smell is important. It's been easy to eliminate choices based on smell. For the record, cars that smell like smoke or pets or overly strong cleaning solutions (which make us question what other smell is being covered up) aren't options for us. :)
• Relatedly, I've made a mental note that when we eventually need to sell any of our vehicles, we should bake cookies and put them in the car ahead of time, lol.
• We've been somewhat amazed at how poorly some people care for their vehicles. Let's just leave it at that.
• The process required a lesson for Micah on negotiation tactics. We had to instruct him to only ask questions while we're *not* in the presence of the seller, lol. 
• Um, our garage may not be big enough for a second car actually. Drat. (We realized last night that the cars we'd narrowed it down to are considerably bigger than the car we're replacing (Nathan's old Scion). Pondering now the purging of the garage and potentially revising our search and starting again and all that stuff.)
• But perhaps the most surprising lesson we learned was that mini vans are really fabulous. ;) Don't laugh. Taking all three boys with us on test drives and having them sit right next to each other in the back seat really opened our eyes to the benefits of having enough room for each boy to *not* be sitting directly next to another, lol. Let's just say that sitting all in a row = noise and commotion that we really hadn't anticipated...wow. ;) (Fortunately, this will just be a second car, not the primary mode of transportation altogether...whew.)

And that's where our car search stands at the moment... :)

Lest my brain explode...

Don't get me wrong. I'm immensely grateful for how good I've got it. I am! And, I know that I've got it good. :) But. Allow me, just for the moment, to whine and freak out a wee little bit...

Our official first day ever of full time public school is in less than a week. Less than a week! That, in itself, is manageable. What might do me in, though, is the list of additional things happening between now and then...for instance:

• Our roof is being replaced as I type. (It's been rescheduled three times...first due to rain, then unexpected delay on another job, then truck problems. But. It's happening now. Fingers crossed that our regularly scheduled potential afternoon storms hold off for today. Please.)
• A second round of pest control spraying (for the ants) will be happening sometime today also...because I still saw ants. Bleh.
• The older two boys have eye appointments Friday, as I was trying to squeeze those in before Noah's schedule becomes much more difficult to work around. (Micah and I have appointments also, but those are a full week away, not a couple days, lol.)
• I need to wrap up our summer reading program as the boys have until Friday to finish. They'll all meet their minimums and it's gone really very well. I'll need to settle up with boys for the "prizes" they each earned. (Maybe they'll cut me some slack and give me an extra week or so...)
• There's an additional demo team practice Saturday morning to get ready for New West Fest the following weekend. (This isn't a huge deal but Micah's going to join in for this one routine and is being rather indecisive about how he feels about it, so I keep hearing about it, lol.)
• The deck is being removed Sunday.
• Nathan will then need to build some temporary steps until we figure out the back patio situation. (Eventually we'll probably also replace the sliding door but didn't get on top of that soon enough to get it scheduled before the house painting.)
• Nathan needs to go around and remove things from the outside of the house to prep for house painting. (The previous owner added all sorts of crazy cables to the outside of the house rather than taking the time to hide them. They've just been painted to blend in, but we're taking the opportunity to actually remove them this time.)
• Prepping for house painting will also involve removing the fence portions that abut the house. We'll schedule full replacement of the fence after that. (We managed to get the two trees that were growing into the fence lines removed last week.)
• I need to give all my guys haircuts prior to student ID pictures being taken (on Tuesday for Noah and on the 18th for the younger two).
• Exterior house painting starts Monday.
• Because they're also going to paint the front door, we need to get new front door hardware and a new doorbell ahead of time to make sure that all fits and is sanded and such.
• (And we have new exterior lights and house numbers to add, but that can wait if need be. Decided we might as well update the whole look while we're repainting and redoing the roof and gutters and screens and such.)
• We have a half day parent orientation for CEC on Monday.
• Noah has a half day new student orientation for CEC on Tuesday.
• The new window well covers we ordered should be installed early next week-ish.
• We're hoping to find a new-to-us second vehicle within the next week...this involves coordinating schedules to both go test drive things. 

Oy. In addition to all that, we'll also have our normal karate classes/practices (I count five between here and next Wednesday), laundry, groceries (which will need to be tweaked to deal with school lunches and actually eating breakfast), bill paying, house keeping, mowing and weeding, getting together with friends, picking up our weekly milk, boot camp and running, and possibly archery practice. Oh, and I need to figure out our extracurricular schedule for the school year because I need to register Noah for school year swim team soon, too. And I have our homeschooling year to finish preparing for. And Micah's still having me take him around trying to sell his books. ;)

So. Now you know why my brain may explode. ;) On the bright side, in a week, all this will be done and I'll be down to just "normal" stuff like school and homeschool and karate and archery and swim team and household chores and such.

Oy.